If you’re not an avid, constant user of
TypeIt4Me, you’re not really getting things
done. By Mark Hurst

I’ll go further and say you’re hardly using your
computer at all until you include TypeIt4Me in
your daily computer usage.

TypeIt4Me (
typeit4me.com) is a Mac-only
shareware app. It costs $27. (For Windows users,
Active Words —
www.activewords.com — offers
similar functionality, but I haven’t used it.)
TypeIt4Me works in both OS X and Classic mode,
and across every application: BBEdit, Safari,
Finder — even MS Office apps bend to its will.

Here’s how it works: you define abbreviations
and associated expansions in TypeIt4Me. When
you type an abbreviation and then hit the trigger
(usually the space bar, but it can be any punctuation mark, depending on your preferences),
the abbreviation instantly gets replaced with the
trigger. For example, if I type “cg” and hit the space
bar, “cg” instantly turns into “Creative Good”. The
abbreviation-expansion function is all TypeIt4Me
does, but that one function has enormous ramifications for every computer user on the planet.

Consider the Many Uses
of TypeIt4Me
1. Corrects misspellings: “teh” becomes “the”
and “taht” becomes “that”. I can type a lot faster
now, since I don’t have to worry about common
misspellings slowing me down. Over the years,
I’ve added all of my most common misspellings,
so now I can blaze on the keyboard and watch in
amusement as TypeIt4Me instantly fixes the misspellings in my cursor’s wake.

2. Expands my custom-defined shorthand: Some
words are both common and lengthy. I use the
word “experience” a lot, but in TypeIt4Me I just
type “ex”. Similarly, “ce” becomes “customer

experience”, “env” becomes “environment”,
and so on.

3. Types in long URLs: My email management
report has a rather long URL: www.goodexperi-
ence.com/reports/e-mail/email-report-goodexperi-ence.pdf. Rather than dig it up every time I need
to paste it into a message, I just type “emu” and it
pastes it in. Similarly, “geu” leads to http://www.
goodexperience.com, “cgu” leads to http://www.
creativegood.com, “tbu” turns into http://www.
thisisbroken.com, etc.

4. Types in H TML phrases: I’ve defined “ahr” to
yield <a href=““></a>. Whether I’m in BBEdit or in
a TypePad form within a web browser, I can get
these key HTML strings out quickly and error-free.

5. Manages passwords: My
wsj.com password is
stored as “wpw”; my
half.com password is stored
as “hpw”; you get the idea. This way, as I define the
abbreviations for each password, all I have to do
is remember the abbreviation — much easier than
keeping track of a million different passwords.

6. Types short phrases: This is great in email. I’ve
set it up so that “tf” becomes “thanks for”; “tfy”
becomes “thanks for your”; “tvmfy” becomes
“thanks very much for your”; and so on. You can
be as polite as you want and optimally efficient at
the same time.

7. Types long messages with multiple paragraphs:
For those messages that I send to multiple
people at different times, I write it once, define a
TypeIt4Me abbreviation, then have it available for
expansion any time. This works great when you